*WARNING- some violent scenes ahead….*
Hokai had done it. He had finally acquired the Meido stone, stolen straight off the neck of Sesshomaru's mother.
He could not take all of the credit, Sabu had proven herself to be very useful. Without her, the plan would not have worked at all. As a female Sabu had the ability to transform her spidery body into whatever humanoid form she wanted, in order to seduce victims to her.
In this scheme Sabu had taken on the visage of one of Lady Sora's servants to gain access to the palace's food and drink supplies. Once inside, she planted Hokai's pheromones into the barrels of clover wine that were waiting to be drunk.
Hokai had known that getting his pincers on that Meido stone was going to be tricky and dangerous. Lady Sora, knowing how valuable her Meido stone was, wore it at all times, never taking it off. This was not unsurprising really- it was probably the most precious object that she owned. Another dangerous obstacle to Hokai getting the Meido was Lady Sora herself, who was almost as strong as her son and a woman with many powerful allies. Arousing the wrath of the high-born was not an option. To get the stone, he would have to outwit them all.
Hokai had toyed with the idea of stealing Inuyasha's sword to resurrect Naraku, or trying to find a way to manipulate Inuyasha into releasing his Meido Zanghetsuha. But these possibilities were fraught with different kinds of risk- he would be reliant on Inuyasha to keep the chthonic path to the underworld open. And if he targeted Inuyasha, it would be harder to deal with interference from Sesshomaru and Kikyo.
Hokai had instead formed the plan to steal Lady Sora's Meido stone using the information Sabu had gathered about the dog demoness's banquet. He didn't need to kill anyone for the Meido, just addle them enough that the demons at the banquet did not realise it had been stolen.
This was where Hokai's pheromones added into the wine came into play. The pheromones were primarily used by the males of his clan to attract a mate- they intoxicated and excited female spiders into a frenzy. A strong and sizeable, undiluted portion was added to the clover wine to send all the celebratory demons into an inebriated state.
Once this was done, Sabu had waited for Lord Sesshomaru to depart, disguised herself as the dog demons hopping toad servant Jaken and convinced an unsuspecting Kikyo to attend the banquet as well. With all his enemies being present at the banquet, Hokai was unlikely to have any meddling occur.
Once they had all become sufficiently intoxicated at the banquet, Sabu (still heavily disguised) had pinched the Meido stone whilst Sora had been busy fucking the water demon Subarashi.
Once the necklace had been lifted, Sabu had scampered back to Hokai triumphantly and handed the Meido over.
Now Hokai had what he needed to reach his true aspiration: to drag Naraku back to the world of the living once again.
Tsumetai and Mikata had been impressed by Hokai's scheme, but they were still dubious about the amount of effort he was going to to resurrect his brother. Hokai was aware of their reluctance to go so far for one demon, but he knew when they met Naraku, they would understand.
The three gathered around the Meido necklace in Mikata's dilapidated throne room. Amidst the fading gold leaf and the rotting wood of Mikata's throne room, the Meido sparkled darkly in Hokai's hairy front legs. The dark blue stone, made of an ore Hokai was unfamiliar with, was encapsulated by a jigsaw of gold. Lady Sora had attached a string of pearls to the Meido in order to hang it round her neck.
Mikata had sent her servants away from her castle and out into the mountains, not trusting any servants to keep their mouths shut about the theft of such a powerful object. Without the day to day bustling of the inhabitants of the castle, the wind outside whistled through the mountains more loudly, until it almost sounded like screaming. Hokai, who was a bit more confident in his spiders, stationed some guards all around Mikata's domain, ordering them to raise the alarm the second they spotted any silver-haired demons approaching. They did not want a house call from Sesshomaru right now.
The Meido was not made for Hokai to use and it took some time and magic to get the stone under his control. Time was a pressuring factor, the longer it took to resurrect Naraku, the longer Sesshomaru and his mother would have to realise the stone was missing and come looking for it.
The mechanics of the Meido stone were simple: the necklace would open a path to the underworld, like the Meido Zangetsuha. And that path to the underworld would remain available for a limited period of time, before closing again. This time frame posed some difficulties, for Naraku was long dead and his soul surely rested in the deepest caverns of hell. Hokai would need as much time as he could wrangle if he was to come out alive.
The Meido and the Meido Zangetsuha opened the door to a sort of limbo, once they entered the Meido they would have to find the beginning of hell. There were many different regions of hell and the deeper a soul went, the more horrifying the regions of hell were meant to be. There were regions devoted to certain types of sinners, or some catered to a combination of sins. Or so Hokai had read.
There was no map of hell to help Hokai in his search for Naraku. He would have to aim for the bowels of hell and hope. They needed time to enter the underworld, find the region where Naraku's was doomed to exist and then find their way back out into the realm of the living. All the while avoiding the gaze of the infamous overlord of death, Enma. Or so Hokai's research had told him.
It could not be a more impossible sounding quest, even more impossible than hoodwinking Sesshomaru's mother.
It would also be imperative to find Naraku a suitable host body for him to invade when he is back with the living. Hokai was certain the frozen, waiting body of Kumonosu would suit his brother well. Naraku would no longer need to endure wearing the apparel of a human.
Unsurprisingly, Tsumetai and Mikata were not thrilled at the prospect of delving into the heart of the Meido and then travelling along to hell for a complete stranger. In the end, after much quarrelling, it was agreed that Tsumetai would accompany Hokai in the depths of hell. Together, they would have an array of defensive spells at their disposal. They could create ice webs, Hokai could poison any approaching creature, and Tsumetai could freeze enemies if needed. Mikata would wait in the living world and would "persuade" the portal to remain open by spilling the blood of some human sacrifices she had gathered together from her own lands. Tsumetai would be monopolising their merged demonic powers, but even without her demonic powers Mikata could still deal with a bunch of helpless humans.
The morning after they had pilfered the necklace, Hokai insisted they make the journey into the Meido. Mikata had already rounded up what humans she could find and had locked them, screaming and terrified, in one of the more secure rooms in her castle. Should the portal start to close, she would shed their blood to keep it open.
They could not afford to wait and bide their time, Lady Sora would be sure to discover the missing necklace soon. She would tell her son and Sesshomaru would hunt them immediately.
Tsumetai stood in the throne room with Mikata whilst Hokai fiddled with the Meido stone. The northern lord was bedecked in his white armour and held his ice-hewn sword limply by his side. His other hand was running through his cerulean hair, he looked sulky and reluctant. "Are we going then?" he said impatiently.
"Just a moment if you please," Hokai said, muttering spells under his breath, trying to manipulate the Meido stone into doing his bidding. After a few minutes of intense spell casting, the spider felt the necklace crack under his will for one small moment.
A portal into the underworld blossomed like some unearthly, swirling flower wreathed in dark magic. the sliver of the underworld that they saw was dark and foreboding.
"There! The underworld awaits us!" Hokai cried triumphantly, scuttling to the edge of the portal, his mottled carapace quivering in anticipation.
"I don't see why I have to go with you, why I have to risk my life for this Naraku person," Tsumetai complained bitterly. Hokai rolled his many black eyes at Tsumetai's obvious fear. For such a powerful demon, Tsumetai could really be a coward at times.
"Because, my icy friend, your demonic powers will be invaluable where we are going. In fact, your power could not be more ideal. The hell we are going to is not just one vast landscape, but many. Lands of fire, plains of ice . As you are an ice demon from the north, I'm sure you'll be useful in some way."
Tsumetai mumbled a grumpy response that Hokai did not quite hear.
"Now, let us take the plunge into the next world," Hokai said. With surprising speed and agility for such a corpulent creature , Hokai leapt eagerly into the portal, his heavy body plummeting into the shadows.
A less enthusiastic Tsumetai followed. The spider and the ice demon were immediately enveloped in a dark, howling wind upon landing. With the wind, toxic gases were buffeted on the breeze, stinging noses and eyes. Strange sword-like appendages jutted from the ground around them. Ahead in the distance a thorn-covered mountain could be seen. Before the mountain, three rivers ran before them, but unlike any rivers they had ever seen. Each river was filled with jet-scaled venomous snakes, moving like a slow and hissing black wave.
Hokai and Tsumetai were not alone. They had been dumped amid a steady stream of dead souls , all making their way to the snake rivers ahead. Above the heads of the souls were dead, flesh rendered, tattered looking birds. The birds dived at the souls below, pecking at them and squawking insults.
"Good! We have managed to skip the several day trek through the Meido and come out at the Sanzu river," Hokai said happily. Tsumetai looked aghast at the news that he could have potentially been forced to travel for days to get to this very spot.
Undead guards were scattered by the snake rivers, either prodding the souls towards heavily guarded bridges across the rivers or directly into the river's snake edge.
Hokai and Tsumetai blended in as best they could, Hokai wished he had the female spider's ability to transform his bulky body. To be caught would mean calamity.
"Great. We only have the river of snakes and, by the looks of it, miles and miles of uphill thorns to worry about until we reach our destination…That won't take forever," Tsumetai said with heavy sarcasm, his eyes fixed on the nearest deathguard.
Hokai shook his ugly head in amazement, his pincers rattling. "Have you never studied the underworld before?"
Tsumetai shrugged disinterestedly. "I'm immortal. Unless I am physically killed, I'll walk the earth's plane forever. Well..for a long time anyway. Why would I care about the hell that mortals come to?"
"If you can be killed, you're not immortal. Just ageless perhaps. Anyway, if you had bothered to learn, you would know that this place is a limbo of sorts for the souls navigating the underworld. These-", Hokai nodded to the souls trudging around them, "-Are souls deemed too …flawed to go to heaven or be reincarnated. Flawed, but not yet confirmed as wicked enough to go to a place like hell. There are deathless judges along this path that will speed up some final destinations. There must be hell-bound souls among us- we will hitch a ride with those souls further down into hell."
Tsumetai sighed heavily, looking more reluctant than ever as the oddly solid looking human souls bumped into them.
"But before we can do that we must navigate the serpent stream," Hokai said brightly as he hurried forward.
Avoiding the deathless guards, they approached the bank of the first serpent river. The black, wet-looking snakes wriggled and writhed, spitting venom up at the souls around them.
The unlucky souls denied access to a bridge attempted in vain to jump across the river, but it was far too wide. Most souls sank into a sea of unforgiving scales and did not re-emerge. The luckier ones managed to wade, then crawl to the other side of the river bank, bitten and bleeding.
Hokai turned to Tsumetai. "Make us a bridge. Not too difficult a job for you is it?" the spider said, he was quickly getting tired of the northern lords apathetic attitude.
"Of course not," Tsumetai snapped. The demon pointed his ice-hewn sword at the river and a frosted, gelid bridge began to form.
"Perfect. Now we can cross," Hokai said, making his way towards the ice bridge.
Unfortunately the dead souls around them had realised their luck and made a desperate swarm for Tsumetai's bridge. Hokai and Tsumetai had to push and throw the surging souls into the river to cross themselves. Within minutes the stampeding feet of scores of souls had broken the ice-bridge into useless falling shards, showering the snakes below in freezing flakes. Hokai and Tsumetai barely made it. They glared at the howling souls that were too late and had been left on the wrong side of the river.
They crossed the next two rivers the same way, though with more caution and deliberation. The snakes became larger and more ferocious looking as they progressed, their venom melting holes through skin and their teeth large enough to snap bones.
Beyond the rivers, but before the thorny mountain, they could see two huge, grotesque looking death guards with rust coloured skin and horns protruding from their heads. They stood at about twenty feet tall. They were busy weighing the clothes off of the backs of the souls around them, putting the clothes on two gnarled, decrepit looking black trees. The naked souls shivered in the constant wind and waited for judgement. If the cracked, ebony branches bent down too far, the souls were thrown unceremoniously through a fiery gateway to hell that whirled in between the two muscular red demons like a relentless sparkler.
Hokai nodded covertly to the flaming portal, it was hard to make out amidst the growing mosh-pit of souls (clearly quite a few dozen souls had made it across the snake rivers). The two death demons worked efficiently to get through the waves of souls approaching, removing clothing, and if need be- skin, to be weighed on those ominous branches.
The demons were hurrying through their work with undivided focus, so it was relatively easy to snag some yelping souls for cover and tumble into the portal as the demon's attention was on the black trees. After all, who in their right mind would be trying to sneak into hell?
They endured another short fall and then landed in the dry, scorching desert that served as the mouth of the burning hells. The very dust under them burned and a cruel wind threw grit into their eyes. Small fires seemed to sprout randomly all over this plane of crimson. A paradoxical twist of this wasteland of hell was the mirrors. Hundreds of body length mirrors were jammed into the sands. At the centre of this army of mirrors was the terrifying lord of this hell hole: Enma. His bright red face was vaguely human-looking, with a deep, scowling monobrow crowning his forehead. Enma was even larger than the weighing demons and was adorned in robes of gold. He sat on a throne constructed entirely of mirror shards. Enma's glowing eyes watched as hundreds of souls that had been sent to hell stepped up to each mirror, ready to be transported to whatever part of hell they belonged in. For the souls at this point, none of the options were good.
Avoiding Enma's luminescent gaze was imperative, they did not want to tangle with the overlord of hell. He could destroy their physical bodies, trap them in hell or throw them into the most dangerous section of the netherworld. This was his domain, if he caught them, it would be all over.
Fervently hoping that Enma would not spy them hidden amongst the hundreds of souls being sucked into the countless mirrors, Tsumetai and Hokai crept away and into the desert. There were ice covered mountains not too far away, the cold realm of hell. They debated heading that way, but decided that Naraku would most likely be in the fiery part of hell. His crimes were legendary. And both Tsumetai and Hokai agreed that burning in flames was worse than freezing to death.
As they made their way through the seemingly endless desert, they went beyond the souls being judged and began to notice the souls being punished. The sand beneath them turned from red to black and the wind whipped up into a black sandstorm. Within the storm , judged wretches were clubbed to death by frightening demons. As Hokai and Tsumetai watched on the sidelines, fleeing souls were captured by the myriad of death demons roaming around. They were brutally beaten to death until they collapsed , or were forced to fight each other. The fighting went on and on. Hokai tried to peer at each tormented face in the carnage, but he was not hopeful. According to his studies, this was not the worst hell one could get sent to.
Surely Naraku would be found in a hell grimmer than this?
They had to wait hours for the fighting to cease. When the last soul fell down dead and the death demons had dispersed, Hokai and Tsumetai picked their way through the bodies. A calm, cooling breeze began to blow and the black sandstorm (which Hokai now suspected held the purpose of preventing souls from escaping) had receded. There were a few brief minutes of peace. The bodies at their feet were a wreck, completely pulverised. As they watched, the bruises, cuts and broken bones began to heal, dissolving into smooth and injured skin.
"Quickly! These bodies…I mean souls, they are reviving! Naraku is not here. We need to get out before they are resurrected and the guards come back. I don't fancy getting caught in the next fray," Hokai said worriedly and they scurried faster until they were once again engulfed in black grit.
They passed over dunes and dunes of obsidian sand, until they reached a tar coloured, cracked plain threaded through with dry rivers full of slow moving ash. The sky was stormy and dark above them, offering very little light to their surroundings.
The next "section" of hell was upon them, a more sinister version of the horror they had left behind.
There was no sandstorm raging here, just turbulent shadows and darkness. Here, the souls lay chained to the ground, apparently unable to move. Bronze-coloured insect demons with claws shaped like swords swarmed the helplessly doomed souls, their forearms already bloody from previous slaughters .Bony Death guards circled over each body and meticulously drew black lines across the limbs of the trapped souls, vicious grins on their emaciated faces. Black lines were drawn around arms, wrists and legs.
Hokai and Tsumetai watched with a sickened fascination as the death guards stood back to allow the insect like demons- that looked similar to human-sized versions of a japanese praying mantis- to lunge forward and begin hacking away at body parts savagely, until nothing was left but bloody piles.
There were no screams and the lack of sound was unnerving. The souls pinned down had wide open mouths, but it seemed both movement and sound were revoked in this part of hell. Hokai could not imagine the torment these souls must be feeling- to be chopped into pieces and not even be able to scream!
"Is Naraku here?" Tsumetai said impatiently, and Hokai realised he had been staring in disgusted awe for several long moments. Hokai shook himself and peered around. There were a lot of souls in this hell section.
But, before too many parts had been removed, he saw him: Naraku.
The unmoving body of Nararku stood out as he was the only one not attempting to scream in agony. Naraku's soul lay there, eyes screwed shut , his curling black locks spread out around his gaunt face.
"There! There he is! In the centre!...Our best hope is that, like the area we just passed through, that these demons will also disperse for a time. That will give us the opportunity we need to collect the- ah -parts."
"...So now I have to carry your brother's mutilated remains back across hell and the meido? You owe me for this Hokai!" Tsumetai raged, eyeing the insect demons and death guards with distaste.
"You'll be rewarded when Naraku kills Sesshomaru," Hokai replied confidently, "we better wait for the right time to snatch him up."
So they waited. It was horrendous to watch the extent of Naraku's suffering in hell. But Hokai was also perplexed. They had not really delved into the depths of hell and Hokai had expected Naraku to be right at the bottom because of his significant sins. He trembled to think what the more extreme levels of hell contained. Once Naraku was no more than a pile of flesh, bone and a decapitated head, the guards once again departed.
they made their move. Hokai and Tsumetai ran past piles upon piles of bloody chunks, until they stood directly over the heap that had once been Naraku.
"Now freeze the pieces of flesh together Tsumetai!" Hokai said, skittering anxiously, his eight eyes trained on the perimeter. Grunting with disgust, Tsumetai pointed his icy sword at what was left of Naraku, until a lump of ice began to form, fusing everything together.
"Lets get out of here! Back the way we came," Hokai hissed. As the spider had no arms or hands, Tumstai was lumbered with the job of dragging Naraku's heavy, mutilated soul with difficulty. Tsumetai heaved the mass over his head, taking an unsteady step forward. Hokai watched him in bewilderment.
"What are you doing? You're a high-born demon, why are you struggling so much?" Hokai whispered furiously.
"I don't know! This soul…It's heavy!" Tsumetai puffed, taking another wobbly step.
Behind them, several ululations rose up. Whilst the death guards had dispersed, the strange, gore covered insect demons had gathered under the stormy gazed at Hokai and Tsumetai with bulbous amber eyes and cried their unearthly cries of alarm.
"Damn it, we've been spotted. We will have to run for it, all the way to the Meido," Hokai yelled. The spider produced some steel like webs, he covered the iced lump that was his brother in the webs and tethered it to both their backs. Once tethered, they dragged Naraku until they were back at the black sandstorm. The insect demon's shrieks had drawn the attention of the death guards, who began howling in rage at the realisation that there were intruders in their midst. Before long they had managed to reach the fighting hell. There were death guards clobbering the poor souls in the first reviving hell. Hokai and Tsumetai viciously pushed through them all, now frantic to make it to the Meido before they were apprehended. The death guards in the first hell joined the fray, until a mob of death guards pursued them across the sand.
Hokai released sticky, limb-tying webs behind them and Tsumetai lobbed fist-sized balls of ice over his shoulder. The webs yanked at clawed feet and a handful of guards were pulled to the ground. A few of the ice balls connected with skulls.
But it was not enough, the majority of the death guards were unscathed and they were coming closer , until Hokai could practically feel their fiery breath on his legs.
The red sand and mirrors were not far, they were so close to making it. So close.
With a cry of fear and anger, Tsumetai stretched his palm towards the floor and the ground behind them became covered in a sheet of ice that hugged the rippling sand. The ground became an ice-rink beneath the guards feet, and they all began to slip and fall, knocking each other over.
"That'll slow them down," Tsumetai gasped. They were lucky when they reached Enma's domain of mirrors. The Overlord's eyes had been attracted to the sudden rink of ice that had appeared behind them and missed seeing their fleeing forms. Tsumetai and Hokai were moving swiftly despite the heaviness of Naraku's soul, which was like dragging a dense block of lead behind them. Naraku's ice-engulfed soul crashed against the otherworldly mirrors that they ran past, sending waiting souls flying.
They reached the flame ridden portal they had commandeered to get in and started throwing souls aside so they could squeeze through. Tsumetai froze the large red death guards weighing souls on the tree branches at the rim of the Meido. The red guards popping eyes followed them in their cube shaped prison of ice.
They raced over the serpent rivers until they saw the dark outline of the necklace's portal hovering in midair. Condemned souls stared in awe as they sped past.
Below the portal they looked up and saw Mikata, she was grinning and gripping a bleeding human in her arms. Blood poured down from the unconscious human man's neck and splashed down onto Tsumetai's face.
"Catch Naraku! Now!" Hokai cried as Tsumetai wiped his face and threw the body parts up to the demoness. Mikata dropped the human body, now dead, through the portal and caught the ice block of body parts with the tips of her fingers.
A hubbub of shouting reached their ears. The death guards were scrambling over the rivers, some trailing biting snakes that were resolutely chewing their ankles. Not only that, the nearby souls, sensing freedom from limbo began to clamour forward, hands reaching towards the portal.
Using his webs Hokai hoisted himself and Tsumetai up towards the portal. The hands of souls snatched at their legs as they reeled closer to the portal's edge. Tsumetai kicked the souls away and Hokai spat poison at the faces of the closest souls until they let go, wailing in despair.
Hokai and Tsumetai tumbled through the portal, Mikata pulling at them roughly. They rolled onto the safety of the throne room floor.
Hokai was back up on his eight legs in seconds. "Quickly, we must cast Kori No Ami to stop any death demons following us through! If Enma pursues us we are done for."
They cast their ice web spell at the portal , covering the opening with magic infused ice and webs. The odd hand and finger crept through, but Mikata stamped on them until they were withdrawn. The spell sealed the portal up just as the scrum of death guards hit. The ice webs bulged and rumbled.
"Now would be a good time to close this portal, Hokai!" Tsumetai snarled, watching the swelling barrier warily. Hokai, seeing he was right, dived for the discarded necklace, which Mikata had carelessly left on the floor.
Hokai picked the necklace up with his front legs, the shiny surface of the necklace muttered the spell to remove his will from the Meido and the portal began to close- slowly.
The protruding barrier began to thrum, like a hundred hands were pounding on the other side.
The three of them watched whilst the portal closed with an agonisingly slow pace. Hokai could sense the lord of hell, Enma, approaching the portal. The overlord's power was immense, a burning wave coming to destroy them.
By some serious stroke of luck, the portal closed and disappeared with a fizzing finality. The presence of Enma and his death guards snapped shut in Hokai's mind.
Tsumetai sighed and fell to the floor. "I'm glad we're out of there. I am never, never going back into hell again. Not for anything."
"At least we were quick. We couldn't have been in there for more than a couple of hours," Hokai mused. His long heart was still beating frantically along his back, but he feigned a calm demeanour.
Mikata shook her head. "You've been gone a lot longer than that. About twenty four hours I'd say. The portal started closing up hours ago, I had to bleed nearly every human I'd rounded up."
Hokai and Tsumetai digested this unpleasant information- that they had been near to joining Naraku in hell for eternity.
Hokai padded over to his brother's melting mess of body parts. It had been a terrifying and awful close shave, but they had done it. "Of course, time in hell works differently."
Mikata and Tsumetai joined Hokai in looking at Naraku's body.
"Remove the ice, Tsumetai, we must allow the parts of his soul to merge. Mikata, you and Sabu should go and get Kumonsosu's body and bring it here, so we're ready," Hokai said.
Mikata grumbled at being ordered around, but her intrigue won out and she went to find Sabu. Lifting his sword for a third time, Tsumetai dispelled the ice around Naraku's soul. As the ice melted, they saw that the clumps of flesh, so solid in hell, had become translucent and could no longer be touched now that they were in the mortal realm. As the ice thawed Naraku's soul began to slide together like a phantom jigsaw. When his faintly glowing soul became whole, he opened his ghostly eyes for the first time.
Hokai crouched over his brother. "Naraku? It's me Hokai!" Hokai said excitedly, peering down at his brother's milky blue soul.
Naraku, unsurprisingly, looked extremely disorientated. Naraku lifted his diaphanous hand and stared at it in disbelief.
"Er- Naraku? Can you hear me?" Hokai tried again cautiously. Tsumetai raised his eyebrows and folded his arms, looking unimpressed.
Naraku snapped his eyes to look at Hokai like he expected to see a hundred insect-like demons surrounding him. Fear blazed from his eyes until he gradually became accustomed to his environment. Naraku's soul looked around blearily.
"He has no idea what's going on. What a waste of a dangerous mission," Tsumetai said dismissively, looking sour.
Hokai hushed the northern lord, looking intently at Naraku's face. "Naraku? Your safe now, there no need to be afraid," Hokai said to the soul,trying to be reassuring.
"Where am I?" Naraku asked. Without a physical throat to use, his voice had an echoing quality. But it was his voice, just as rich and menacing in sound as it had always been. Relief and elation flooded Hokai and he gave his brother's soul a pincery grin.
"You are back in the mortal world Naraku. I took you out of hell, with the help of my accomplice here," Hokai explained.
Slowly, Naraku's watery-looking soul sat up, dazed and befuddled in a way that was uncharacteristic for him. Naraku turned his face towards Hokai. "Who are you?"
Hokai's elation was deflated slightly by indignation. He had expected his brother to recognise him immediately. Hokai felt annoyed about it, he had risked his life and the life of others to rescue Naraku! But perhaps he was judging too harshly, Naraku had just been literally dragged out of hell after all. Behind him Tsumetai snickered.
"It's me Hokai,your brother. Do you remember? The wicker clan? Wicker Hollow?" Hokai tried to remind his brother in a disappointed voice.
"Brother…"Naraku repeated blandly, as if the word was completely alien to him.
At that moment, Mikata and Sabu make their way into the wrecked throne room, dragging Kumonosu's frosted body behind them. The open doors revealed a glimpse of Hokai's soldiers standing guard outside, all the soldiers were peering inside nosily.
"I'm not dragging this great big lump another inch," Mikata growled, releasing the long spider leg she had been pulling on.
Hokai turned to Naraku. "Naraku, you need a corporeal body to use. This is the body of the old Weaver of Wicker Hollow. I killed him and have taken over the clan now. His body should be strong and you'll have access to his toxic poisons….I need your help- We need your help to kill some old enemies of yours once and for all. You are..Unparalleled in your deviousness and cunning. No one knows black sorcery as well as you and we need your guidance to bring our enemies down," Hokai said to his brother's soul, his voice dripping with reverence.
Hokai's words seemed to release Naraku from some of his confusion. Naraku's soul stiffened in hatred and he whispered one word: "Inuyasha."
Hokai nodded sagely. He knew his brother would want to know the fate of the half breed who had killed him. "Inuyasha is alive, he killed you over four years ago. The girl Kagome if here too…But they are not the enemies that we want to focus on, not straight away at least. We need your help now to kill Sesshomaru and Kikyo."
At Kikyo's name, Naraku's eyes widened. He stood up slowly and gave Hokai his full attention. "Kikyo….she cannot be alive….I killed her. Twice." Naraku said in his echoing, silken voice. Hokai shrugged, finding the topic of Kikyo's second resurrection less interesting than discussing how they would kill her.
"Yes I know, but she is back. A mere magic fluke if you ask me. But she has a body and she is walking, shooting and purifying any demon in league with us," Hokai said.
Naraku's soul flickered and shifted malevolently. "Kikyo…It's been a long time. And Inuyasha and Sesshomaru too…"
"Sabu here, my best female spy, has confirmed something we have suspected for a while. Now that Kikyo is back, it seems her love for Inuyasha has waned in favour of Sesshomaru. Sabu witnessed them being intimate when she set the trap for this Meido. This may be a useful fact for when your ready to pull together your first trap," Hokai said.
Naraku's soul raised an imperious hand to silence Hokai. "Enough. Whilst I have no body I am vulnerable. There will be time to tell me everything. If Kikyo is alive I will most certainly be setting up a little reunion. Tell me- where is the shikon jewel?" There was a longing in Naraku's voice at the mention of the shikon no tama.
Hokai looked hard into his memory. "I'm not sure what happened to that artefact…But it no longer exists, it must have been destroyed."
Tsumetai, who had been watching this exchange without comment, finally lost his patience. Mikata, who had draped herself on her throne, was half-asleep.
"Perhaps we can get this body merger underway today. Once he's actually solid, your brother can start working towards winning this war for us," Tsumetai said. Naraku gave Tsumetai an appraising look..
Tsumetai woke Mikata roughly and they dragged Kumonosu's dead body over to Naraku, Sabu hovering behind them. Tsumetai began thawing the spider's frozen limbs, ready for Naraku to absorb himself into Kumonosu's flesh. To everyone's surprise Naraku would not accept the offering of Kumonosu's body on its own, and insisted that Sabu also be sacrificed to him.
"The females of our clan can take any form they choose. I require this power," Naraku said insidiously. Hokai was reluctant to agree, Sabu had been a most faithful and useful servant to him. But before Hokai could open his fangs to protest, Sabu had squealed and tried to run. Mikata caught the female spider gleefully and yanked her seconds Naraku was forcing his soul into Sabu's skin, smothering her control over her own body until her own soul slipped away.
Naraku made quick work of absorbing Kumonosu after, using his demonic ability to meld flesh into his own creation.
Once he had absorbed the two spiders, he immediately began to shift his appearance, using the skills Sabu had unwillingly given him. Instead of eight legs he grew human hands and feet. his body became lean and long and his skin turned white. Wavy, ebony hair began to grow out of his very human looking skull and in place of many, beetle black eyes, two baleful scarlet eyes appeared.
"Now, tell me everything there is to know about Inuyasha, Sesshomaru…and Kikyo."
Writer's note: Thank you for my reviews!
Akashi- Just to clarify what was happening in the last chapter- It was Hokai that "poisoned" the wine at the banquet in order to get the meido stone to bring Naraku back to life! The reason the poison's effect was not lasting on Kikyo is because Kikyo is not human. The way I view her in my story is that she exists in a body of clay that is made lifelike by magic. So I don't think a poison that would kill a human would kill Kikyo- but as her body is magicked to imitate flesh and blood I thought it would be cool for her body to "echo" some human reactions.
If she is hit physically or attacked with demonic magic that is different, her clay body is damaged and so when Kikyo is hurt the magic on her body fades and she starts to revert back to clay.
I don't think it is actually clear in Inuyasha what type of body she has normally when she is resurrected (I'm guessing she looks like a normal human most of the time as she always talking to humans in the series), but because I wanted her to have an intimate relationship in this story with Sesshomaru that's how I've portrayed her.
Heaven Opposing everything- Thank you very much for your review. I'm glad you are enjoying the story so far! Do let me know when you finish your SessxKik story. I'd love to read it!